Vegetarian Lasagna
This recipe includes a mix of vegetables. You can use all or choose your favorites.
Recipe from The Calories In, Calories Out Cookbook: 200 Everyday Recipes That Take the Guesswork Out of Counting Calories—Plus , the Exercise It Takes to Burn Them Off, copyright © Catherine Jones and Elaine Trujillo, 2014. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment. Available wherever books are sold.
6
- Tomato Vegetable Sauce (makes scant 7 cups)
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1 Tbsp dried oregano
- 1 small zucchini (5 oz), cut into small dice (1 c)
- 1 small red bell pepper (3 oz), cored, seeded, and cut into small dice (1 cup/250 ml)
- 1 very small eggplant (6 oz), cut into a small dice (2 c)
- 8 oz cremini or button mushrooms, rinsed, stems trimmed, and thinly sliced (3 cups/750 ml)
- A sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper
- One 24 oz high-quality jarred pasta sauce
- One 15 oz can tomato sauce
- ¼ c chopped fresh basil, to taste
For Assembly
- One 9 oz box no-boil or oven-ready lasagna noodles, such as Barilla
- 3 c (or 12 oz) shredded part-skim low-moisture mozzarella cheese
- To make the sauce, heat the oil in a very large nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, Italian seasoning, and oregano and sauté for 30 seconds, then add the zucchini, red bell peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft, about 7 minutes. Add the pasta sauce and tomato sauce, stir well, and remove from the heat.
- To assemble the lasagna, spread a heaping 1 cup (250 ml) of the sauce over the bottom of a deep 9 x 9-inch (23 x 23 cm) square baking dish. Cover with some of the lasagna noodles. Break some of the noodles lengthwise to fill in any gaps on the sides of the pan.
- Cover the noodles with a heaping 1 cup (250 ml) of the sauce, then sprinkle one-quarter of the mozzarella cheese evenly over the sauce. Repeat this layering process of noodles, sauce, and cheese two more times. For the final fourth layer of noodles, place the noodles on top of the cheese, then spread the remaining sauce over them and top with the remaining cheese. You will have some noodles left over. (At this point, the lasagna can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 12 hours.)
- To bake, center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Cover the lasagna with a piece of foil and bake for 45 minutes (or slightly longer, about 15 minutes, if coming straight out of the refrigerator).
- Remove the foil and bake for 10 more minutes, or until a knife inserted into the middle of the lasagna indicates soft noodles and most of the sauce has been absorbed. Remove from the oven, cover with foil, and allow to rest for 15 minutes before slicing.
You should have about 7 cups of vegetables diced small or sliced, which will shrink down to about 4 cups after cooking. To make things really easy, use jarred tomato sauce, to which I add some canned tomato sauce. Your total amount of sauce plus cooked vegetables should be about 7 cups. To keep the calories at bay, the amount of mozzarella cheese is on the low side. If you’re not concerned with calories, feel free to add more mozzarella or your favorite cheese. The lasagna can be assembled up to 12 hours in advance and refrigerated before baking, and the baked lasagna freezes well for weekday dinners.
390 Calorie: Protein: 21 g; Carbohydrates: 49 g; Fat: 13 g; Fiber: 7 g; Sodium: 1,291 mg; Carb Choices: 3; Diabetic Exchange: 3 Starch, 2 Medium-Fat Meat